Perhaps Sheriff Mahoney and Madison Police Chief Mike Koval should have a public debate regarding the merits of legalization. Last September, Koval spoke out in favor of Wisconsin taxing and regulating adult use of cannabis, as states like Washington and Colorado, and more recently Alaska, Oregon and Washington, D.C., have done. Koval stated cannabis prohibition was an “abject failure,” and, “We’ve done such an abysmal job using marijuana as a centerpiece of drug enforcement, that it’s time to reorder and triage the necessities of what’s more important now.”

Koval clearly gets what Mahoney can’t see and Walker refuses to acknowledge: Cannabis prohibition is a fraud that only makes things worse. Dane County Executive Joe Parisi gets it too. Dane County voters twice spoke loud and clear about cannabis through two landslide votes for legalization via county advisory referendums.